The guide · by Metro Mode
Villefranche-sur-Mer
A Savoyard naval town in tiers above one of the Mediterranean's deepest roadsteads
Villefranche rises in tiers on the slopes of its rade, one of the deepest natural anchorages of the western Mediterranean, separated from Nice by Mont Boron, Mont Alban and Mont Vinaigrier. The Greeks and Romans moored here and called it Olivula Portus; in 1295 Charles II of Anjou, Count of Provence, granted a tax franchise to bring people back down to the shore, and the town was named Villa Franca.
After the Franco-Ottoman fleet of Barbarossa occupied the rade in 1543, Emmanuel-Philibert of Savoy turned Villefranche into his fortified naval base: the Citadelle Saint-Elme, the Fort du Mont-Alban and the galley port of the Darse. From 1856 the Imperial Russian Navy leased the lazaret and the Darse, and from 1945 to 1966 the rade sheltered the US Sixth Fleet.
Read on
The old town keeps its covered Rue Obscure along the first rampart, the baroque church of Saint-Michel and, on the quay of the fishing port, the Chapelle Saint-Pierre that Jean Cocteau painted in 1957.
Highlights
- Place of worshipChapelle Saint-PierreThe fishermen's chapel that Jean Cocteau painted in 1957, on the quay of the fishing port
- Place of worshipÉglise Saint-MichelThe parish church rebuilt 1732–1757 on a Latin-cross plan, listed in 1990
- CastleCitadelle Saint-ElmeOne of Europe's first bastioned fortresses, built for Emmanuel-Philibert of Savoy
Lists & itineraries
Everything, by kind
Sources
- Wikipédia (fr) : Villefranche-sur-Mer
- Wikipédia (fr) : Rue Obscure
- Wikipédia (fr) : Chapelle Saint-Pierre de Villefranche-sur-Mer
- OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL)
- Wikidata
- INSEE IRIS / IGN (Licence Ouverte 2.0)